Stephen MacMahon toyed
briefy with the idea of
becoming a jazz musician
before going into medicine.
Today, he is an internationally
recognised authority on
the causes, prevention and
treatment of cardiovascular
diseases. His work has had a
major impact on health policy
and practice worldwide.
Meet the 2013 Entrepreneur
Of The Year Social
entrepreneur winner.
After I graduated, the frst
thing I did was enrol in
the Conservatorium of
Music," says Stephen. "I
felt that my calling was not
medicine or science, but jazz. After three
months I realised I wasn't the new Miles
Davis and I went back and enrolled in a
postgraduate medicine degree." Stephen
went on to establish The George Institute
for Global Health in 1999, with a mission
of fnding sustainable solutions to the
major health problems facing the world in
the 21st century.
A focus of the Institute's work has been
the control of cardiovascular diseases,
serious injuries and associated disabilities
in resource-poor settings. “We knew that
the solutions developed in established
markets were both unaffordable and
impractical for emerging markets," says
Stephen. "I believed that if we took the
research and development skills we had
developed and applied these in a resource-
sensitive manner to the problems facing
countries such as China and India, we
could potentially formulate innovative
models of healthcare that would provide
sustainable solutions."
Under Stephen's leadership, The
George Institute has established research
centres in Australia, China, India and
the United Kingdom, in partnership with
leading universities. These centres employ
a total of more than 400 staff members
working on projects in more than 40
countries worldwide. These projects range
from preventing foetal alcohol spectrum
disorder in Australian Indigenous
children to managing acute intracerebral
haemorrhage in Chinese adults.
The Institute has self-funded its
expansion, primarily through the
success of its wholly owned commercial
subsidy, George Clinical, now an
Asian leader in providing high-quality
clinical research to the world's large
pharmaceutical companies. In the
next decade, Stephen plans to focus
on implementing the solutions from
The George Institute's work through
a series of not-for proft companies.
New enterprises include George
Medicines, which is developing drugs
for the emerging markets, and George
Technologies, currently developing
clinical technologies to help healthcare
providers in resource-poor settings.
Currently, effective healthcare only
reaches two billion of the seven billion
people on the planet, and Stephen
believes that entrepreneurship has a
huge part to play in healthcare delivery
in the 21st century. "If the world is to
provide healthcare to all those in need,
it will require disruptive solutions that
fundamentally change the healthcare
market," he says. "It will only be
entrepreneurs --- whether social or
otherwise --- who challenge the status
quo in the quest to ensure effective
sustainable healthcare for rich and poor
countries alike."
An accidental
12
Category winner | Social entrepreneur | Professor Stephen MacMahon, The George Institute for Global Health
entrepreneur